A Sexual War Within the United Nations

The radical feminist agenda has gone global and the United Nations is
leading an attack on both family values and the traditional role of
women. For example, the UN now recommends that Catholic hospitals,
such as those in Italy, offer abortions even if medical personnel
have religious objections. Specific nations have been reprimanded.
Belarus has been publicly criticized for maintaining "such symbols as
a Mothers' Day and a Mothers' Award" which promote female
stereotypes. Libya has been asked "to reinterpret the Koran so that
it falls within Committee guidelines" on women.

The Committee being referenced is CEDAW, which regularly reviews the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women, adopted by the UN in 1979. Signatory nations agreed to abide
by CEDAW and to attempt implementation of the Committee's
recommendations. (The United States has yet to ratify CEDAW.) Austin
Ruse—President of the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute—
described how the Committee has assumed broad powers to reinterpret
the original Convention. For example, it "ordered the government of
China to legalize prostitution even though the Convention expressly
forbids the trafficing [sic] and prostitution of women."

The UN itself evolved from the Declaration of United Nations (1942)
through which twenty-six nations pledged to support the Allies during
World War II and to work toward peace thereafter. For those who still
think of the UN as a peacekeeper, it may seem unbelievable that the
agency is trying to restructure "the family" and impact such personal
decisions as birth control and abortion. To those who view the UN as
want-to-be global government, it comes as no surprise.

Today, conservative groups are openly attacking the UN's politically
correct policies. The Family Research Council recently published an
anthology entitled "Fifty Years after the Declaration" in which
nearly two dozen experts condemned the UN's social polices. The
Heritage Foundation has issued a report entitled "How U.N.
Conventions on Women's and Children's Rights Undermine Family,
Religion, and Sovereignty" by Patrick F. Fagan, a former Bush
administration official. Fagan accuses committees such as CEDAW "and
the special-interest groups assisting them" of being anti-family and
pro-feminist.

It has taken years for the UN's anti-family agenda to receive public
attention, partly because the shift toward PC policies has been
gradual. Moreover, the policies are often embedded in thick and
tedious documents. They are described in "UN speak"—phrases that
sound innocuous but are politically charged. But conservatives are
now casting a spotlight on these policies and radical feminists are
responding. A report entitled "Right-Wing Anti-Feminist Groups at the
United Nations"—written by Anick Druelle and funded by the
Canadian government—was a response to the presence of
conservatives at the 44th session of the United Nations Commission on
the Status of Women (March 2000). In a blatant distortion, the report
accuses critics of believing "that the traditional patriarchal family
be the only type of family to be recognized..." Yet much of the
criticism I have read says only that the UN has no business
influencing personal relationships within a family, traditional or
not.

To understand this sexual war, it is necessary translate another
piece of UN Speak: the word "gender." For CEDAW, gender is a social
construct. That is, gender does not refer to biological difference of
male and female. Rather, it refers to the sex roles that have been
artificially constructed by the institutions of society, such as the
family or government. Such social institutions impose gender roles—
e.g. maleness, heterosexuality—upon individuals. Thus, according
to the UN Office of the Special Advisor on Gender Issues and the
Advancement of Women, gender is defined as "the social attributes and
opportunities associated with being male and female...These
attributes, opportunities and relationships are socially constructed
and are learned throughsocialization processes."

This is opposite of what has been called "sexual essentialism," a
theory which roots sexuality and sex roles in biology, rather than
culture. Sexual essentialism argues that such phenomena as motherhood
and heterosexuality are biologically driven. By contrast, radical
feminists maintain that these phenomena results from cultural
indoctrination. The main theorist of this view in America, Catharine
MacKinnon, has praised radical feminism for exposing "marriage and
family as institutional crucibles of male privilege" and has defined
"the institution of intercourse, as a strategy and practice in
subordination."

Radical feminism seeks to deconstruct gender and put it back together
according to a PC design. The key to doing so lies in controlling the
institutions of society, especially the law and the administration of
law. This is what CEDAW aims at doing through its reinterpretation of
the original Convention and the monitoring of how their
recommendations are implemented.

Thus CEDAW told Armenia to combat the stereotype of motherhood.
Azerbaijan was encouraged to establish a national plan "to enhance
gender awareness and...to combat traditional stereotypes." Colombia
was urged to eliminate all sexist stereotypes in the media. German
"measures aimed at the reconciliation of family and work" were said
to "entrench stereotypical expectations." The list of CEDAW's
attempts to redefine social norms scrolls on. Although the
recommendations do not carry the force of law, nations that signed
CEDAW are pledged to enforce its provisions. Moreover, they
understand that UN funding and other assistance may rest on their
co-operation with UN policies.

Fagan concludes his critique with the only reasonable explanation of
the UN's recent PC policies. He writes, "If the objective is to
increase state control of all functions of society, then the U.N.
approach makes sense."

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